Preparing .rhosts

The user's .rhosts file (see rhosts(4tcp)) also does not have an equivalent NIS map. Make the list of trusted hosts explicit, or use netgroup names for the same purpose. Note that you cannot use host name aliases in your .rhosts or hosts.equiv files. You can, however, use host name aliases in /etc/hosts (see the hosts(4tcp) manual page). All of these files are related in that they enable remote machines to access local machines in some fashion.